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A Brief History of Christians and Social Media

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A long time ago Jesus rose from the dead and everyone was like WHAAAA even though he had been dropping hints about his resurrection pretty much from day one. He probably did a thing with his eyes and was like GUYS, REALLY? But I can’t prove that.

Anyway, after he did a victory lap around Jerusalem he got his followers together and said goodbye. He rose up into the air to leave the earth and the last conversation went sort of like this:

Jesus: I’m going to heaven
Christians: cool
Jesus: I’ll get it ready for you
Christians: cool
Jesus: and while I’m doing that…
Christians: anything, you name it
Jesus: …you guys spread out and tell everyone about me

And then the various groups of Christians were all like WELL ACTUALLY and as Jesus was floating through the sky he was thinking ARE YOU SERIOUS and he pretended to not hear them but he totally did because he was Jesus.

So the Christians huddled up and Jerry Falwell was like “he meant he wants us to win elections” and John Calvin was like “he meant only certain people can become Christians” and the Republicans were like “he meant for us to take over the world” and the progressive Christians were like “we weren’t really paying attention, but we are definitely outraged.”

So everyone went home. John Calvin built a bunch of seminaries and Jerry Falwell went on TV and asked people for money and the Republicans tried to take over the world and the progressive Christians just sort of moped around and looked for that one pair of glasses that says “smart, but also an iconoclast.”

And then God saw that Christians weren’t really talking to anyone but other Christians so He was all like come on guys, and He created the internet so Christians could at least send e-mail forwards and maybe by accident some of them might wind up in some heathen inboxes or something, but all the Christians just got on LiveJournal and wrote horrible poetry while they listened to that first Jars of Clay CD.

So God invented AOL Buddy Lists and Christian guys were like COOL but instead of chatting with nonbelievers they opened up 5 IM windows with 5 different Christian babes and sat up all night watching them–like a fisherman watching his lines–waiting for those sweet sweet chimes of hope.

So God invented MySpace but Christian girls wouldn’t put nonbelievers in their Top 8. Those spaces were precious. And no one had time to talk to any nonbelievers because it took a lot of time to get that profile looking just right with the glittery background and moving graphics.

So God invented Facebook and all the Christian moms lost their minds and filled up everyone’s feed with crappy links about how detergents are the silent killers and about how one simple trick will save your life during a home invasion and hmm let me just click on that one I’m sure nothing bad will happe–
[pop up window: YOU WON’T BELIEVE HOW THIS TEA PARTY VETERAN SHUT DOWN OBAMA]
[pop up window: 10 SUPERFOODS THAT WILL REVERSE AGING]
*turns off computer*
[pop up window: SEXIEST FEMALE NEWS ANCHOR FAIL COMPILATION]
*takes computer outside, throws in trash*
*walks inside, opens refrigerator*
[pop up window: ONCE IN A LIFETIME REFINANCE SECRETS REVEALED]

So God invented Twitter and He was like I IMMEDIATELY REGRET THIS and suddenly 10,000 Twitter Christians tweeted him like WELL ACTUALLY GOD CAN’T MAKE MISTAKES and God started to remind them about the times He felt regret when He created man or made Saul king…but the Twitter Christians were gone, on to the next outrage, always the next outrage.

So God limited each tweet to 140 characters, just like in the Old Testament when he limited people’s lifespans. Only this time the limit didn’t help; it made things worse. Christians mistook brevity for profoundness and spent all day tweeting out existential buffoonery that vaguely resembled spiritual truth. It might have done some damage, too, if any nonbelievers saw the tweets, but they didn’t, because Twitter Christians mostly just interacted with other Twitter Christians.

Then Jesus was like “you want me to go back down there and talk to them?” but God was like “no, they only listen to the internet,” so He raised up an army of blog prophets to remind Christians to share the Gospel and take care of orphans and widows and stuff. But even this didn’t work; the blog prophets caught Pharisee disease and started churning out flotsam like

and then God was probably real annoyed at technology and made a rule that the angels had to turn in their iPhones. And the angels were probably super mad but what are you going to do, you’re an angel, why are you even downloading all those apps anyway.

Luckily there are Christians like me who get everything right, and I’m totally going to live out all the things Jesus said to do, I just have to finish this think piece about how everyone else gets it wrong and then tweet it out to all my Christian friends.